Manx Care is insisting that drafting in a private provider to run the publicly owned Summerhill View residential care home in Douglas, is a "really good value solution."
However, it's refused to disclose how much the contract awarded to LV Care Group is worth or how many other providers tendered for the opportunity.
It's estimated the state-of-the-art facility, which cost just under £15 million to build and will replace Reayrt ny Baie, will be up and running by November; although a confirmed date has not yet been set.
Manx Radio's Christian Jones sat down with the health body's Executive Director of Social Care, Mental Health and Safeguarding, Professor Tim O'Neill:
Hello and welcome in for another episode of Manx Radio's Newscast, an opportunity to hear the people we speak to in more depth than you'll typically hear on air. Now, Manx Care is insisting that drafting in a private provider to run Summerhill View Residential Care Home in Douglas is a really good value solution. However, it's refused to disclose how much the contract awarded to LV Care Group is worth or how many other providers tended for the opportunity. It's estimated Summerhill View, which costs just under £15 million to build and will replace written obey, will be up and running by November, although a confirmed date has not yet been set. I sat down with the health body's Executive Director of Social Care Mental Health and Safeguarding, Professor Tim O'Neill. This contract has been through a tender process, how many other organisations had made a submission to the provider. So, we considered a number of different applications to the commissioning process and we went through a really robust process. I'm not sure it's appropriate for me to tell you exactly how many, but there were several organisations that came forward and I was involved in the process from beginning to end. Okay, what is the value of the contract then that's been awarded to LV Care Group for the running of Summerhill View? That's commercially sensitive. I'm afraid Krishna would love to be able to help you with that, but I can't. So, we're not going to find out what the value of the contract is to LV Care Group. Not on the radio, no. As you, I'm sure you'd understand, Christian, it's commercially sensitive. The organisation may choose to share that information or not, but I think I'm certainly hoping that conversation is about the opening of the setting. How many staff will be working within Summerhill View? So, the provider LV just starting the mobilisation process that we'll be very close to within our organisation alongside my contracts team, in fact, we're meeting with them tomorrow, and they will staff the setting appropriately. We worked really hard with all the prospective providers to ensure the staffing levels are going to be of a really good quality. My drive, Christian as I'm sure you know, is the highest quality residential care for our residents. It's a fabulous setting. I walked around it last week, obviously with no one needs at the moment, but it really is a fantastic setting. I'm sure residents will give us some positive feedback on that when they move into their new home. So, how many staff will be working in there? What's the minimum number of staff that's required to run the facility to the minimum level? So, we've agreed the staffing ratios through the contract, and they will be at least as effective as they are in Gratnebae, and hopefully more so. Certainly, we've stipulated those exact staffing levels through the contract. And we're very pleased with the conversation we've had with the provider about the levels of staffing. And of course, quality care is not just about levels of staffing. It's important for me to say that it's also about the quality of staff that are in the care setting. It's about the support we give to the provider, and it's about the wraparound services around the home as well. So, we're equally as focused on that as we are on the numbers of staff. So, do we have an actual figure on the number of staff, though? I can't give you a figure for that today, no, because it's wrapped up into the contract. Right, okay. What would you say to people who might be thinking we're paying increased tax, which is meant to be funding the whole service, but there seems to be more and more privatization creeping in? I understand residents' concerns, and Gratnebae has provided a fabulous home for residents for a number of years. This is a good value solution for taxpayers. I've been in post a few months now, and I'm fully focused on the best value solutions for taxpayers on the island, for whom I'm now one, and I can confidently tell you that this is a good value for money solution. As you know, as well as I do Christian, I'm sure listeners do, residential care is not cheap to provide. It's an expensive provision which we're delighted to be providing through LV, and we think we've come up with a good value for money solution. Let's come to the expense to run a facility like this. Mankscare's chief executive has previously said it would cost the health service a substantial amount of additional funding to staff a nursing home, so that indicates a cost-benefit analysis has taken place. What does substantial mean? What is the figure on that if Mankscare was to run it itself? Yeah, I haven't got a figure on that, but what I can tell you is to ease it's absolutely right that from our point of view, this is a really good value solution. I'll just give you some detail to that. We're able to purchase 45 beds plus 15 beds, but we're also able to cost control in terms of the staffing levels through the contract. With all due respect though, how can you tell the Isle of Man's public that you absolutely have value for money here, but we don't have any details about the value of the contract, or even a figure about how much it would cost the health body to run the facility itself? So you question, you'll know that this is part of a much wider discussion around our budget and driving towards value for money, part of my job is to do that, and I'm confident that this is a solution that provides the best value for money it could possibly do at this point in time, and I'm happy to talk to listeners about that in more detail moving forward. From my point of view, having been imposed for a few months, I'm confident this is the right solution, and I'll bring this back to what I said at the start. What an amazing facility for residents to move into will protect, will ensure that most vulnerable residents are catered for within that setting, and that's a brilliant solution for the island as far as I'm concerned. You keep saying this word quality care will come to that now. LV care group has previously told us about a separate Isle of Man-based care home that it's running on a recruitment drive for, but it says you don't need any formal qualifications to apply. Can you confidently say that quality care will be delivered? I can tell you that our contract is very tight, and we're confident in LV as a provider. We've gone through a thorough process. As you've mentioned already, LV are already present and committed on the island, and we're on a journey to make sure that our contracts arrangements are as strong as our frontline practice, and we're confident we can get there on that. We're very clear on the quality that we're expecting. We were given really good feedback from all the providers that applied, actually, on the quality they can provide, and I'll take us back to the setting. The setting is a really good starting point, but the quality of the staffing, the quality of the training and development and support that they receive will be equally as critical, and we'll be very close to that. It is hoped that Summer Hill will be an operation by November, but we're told it may take some time to have a confirmed date as staff will need to undertake operational training. What is operational training? That's about ensuring that staff can fulfill their full duties as professionals on site, and that, as you'd expect, requires a range of training programs. It depends also on the staff who come forward. For example, some people come forward who are already well trained and have experience in residential care, then their training and support may be more discreet than someone who's got less training. Who will be paying for those staff to undertake operational training? The contracting includes the providers making commitments to ensure that staffing is appropriately trained on site and before they start. That's something that's written into the contract, and we'll work through that as we go through the mobilization program. It's important to say we're not recruiting a private provider, and they're leaving them to their own devices. We were impressed by LV in terms of working in partnership with them. As you know, they're already on the island. You've already referenced that, and it's important to us that they are committed to the island, and we'll work very closely with them. Will Manx Care be funding the training as part of the contractual figure? Is that on top of the contractual figure? To be honest, I'm not aware of that. What I would say about that is that the contract fully explores and exposes the activity that will be undertaking in terms of training development, and we're very confident the contract has everything it needs within it in order to set up and fully deliver. Is Manx Care going to be funding this operational training? I can't comment on that at the moment, Christian, because I haven't got the contract in front of me. I'm happy to first have a second radio interview where I've got the contract in front of me, although I'm not sure playing that out in front of the listeners is necessarily the right way to approach these things. What I'm giving you is absolute confidence that the contract is written in a way the provision will be run effectively and within regulation. Will this be staffed solely by Isle of Man residents, or do you anticipate there'll be further outsourcing of staff from the UK and elsewhere? Again, that's up to LV to decide, and what we're making sure the contract delivers is high quality staffing through the contract, so that's to a degree up to LV to decide as an independent provider. Obviously, it would be delighted if they're recruiting locally, and there may be opportunities for staffing from the at the bay, for example, to work for LV, but that's obviously not in our domain and not in our control, but we're very confident that they'll staff the hope appropriately. Talk to me about the relationship between LV and Manx Care. How do you imagine you'll monitor that relationship and deal with any issues or potential complaints that arise? We've got a very small but highly effective contracts team, and their job will be to monitor and evaluate the contract delivery with the variables that are written into the contract, and certainly as the executive director, I'll ensure that we've got those arrangements in place. It's a new journey for us as well, and so, doubtless, there'll be some learning for us as we go along, and we're very open, transparent about that, but we're certainly confident we can monitor the contract effectively. And critical to that, Christian, as I'm sure you know, is good quality, trusting relationships between us and the provider, and I'll certainly be paying very close attention to that. That's one of the reasons why we're meeting the provider tomorrow, just to start the process off in the right way and continue that relationship building. Thank you for making it to the end of the Manx Radio newscast. You are obviously someone with exquisite taste. 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